NASA and SpaceX’s ISS Boost Was a Step Toward Independence

A major milestone has been achieved by NASA and SpaceX. The organizations involved in space exploration and aeronautics research have successfully elevated the orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) without requiring any assistance from Russian technology.

This makes it a key step in reducing reliance on Russian tech for station maintenance.

Who Runs the ISS Today (and Why It Matters)

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the US federal government and is responsible for the country’s civil space program. It was established in 1958 and has been leading the majority of America’s space exploration programs, including Project Mercury, the Apollo program, the Mariner program, and the Space Shuttle.

Several decades after NASA’s establishment, the ISS was launched in 1998, and since 2000, the station has been continuously inhabited by the crew.

ISS is a collaborative effort between the U.S., Russia, Japan, Canada, and the 22 member nations of the European Space Agency (ESA). The program was meant to bring together flight crews, launch vehicles, operations, training, engineering, and development facilities, communications networks, and the scientific research community from all over the world. 

In this interdependent effort, Russia plays a key role. 

The first module sent into orbit, which was the same year the station was launched, was the Russian Zarya control module. A couple of years later, in 2000, the Zvezda Service Module marked the first fully Russian contribution to the ISS. It served as the early cornerstone for the first human habitation of the station, providing living quarters and life support systems that docked with the earlier Zarya module, which serves as the station’s original control and power segment. The Zvezda module also houses the main computers that are supplied by the ESA.

Russia has historically provided most of the propulsion efforts for ISS, where it is used for station reboost, attitude control, and debris avoidance maneuvers.

Moreover, the US gyroscopes, which are devices used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity, provide day-to-day attitude control for the station’s orientation. When they reach their control limits, Russian thrusters take over to ensure attitude control recovery. These thrusters are also used for attitude control during dynamic events such as spacecraft docking. 

The U.S. solar arrays, meanwhile, transfer power to the Russian Segment to supplement their power needs.

According to the official NASA website, “current interdependencies between each segment of the station prevent the U.S. Orbital Segment and Russian Segment from operating independently.”

The US agency, however, has been working on ending the ISS with a plan already laid out. After nearly three decades of continuous human presence aboard the microgravity laboratory, NASA will continue to operate the space station through 2030, allowing it time to purchase the services it needs from commercial companies while the agency explores the Moon and Mars. 

Besides the US, Canada, Japan, and the participating countries of the ESA have committed to support ISS operations through 2030, while Russia will not contribute beyond 2028.   

So, NASA is planning to deorbit the International Space Station in the coming years. For this, they are considering a few different options, including disassembly before returning to Earth, natural orbital decay with random reentry, precise re-entry, and boosting to a higher orbit.

Now, by elevating the ISS orbit with the help of Elon Musk’s SpaceX and without requiring the assistance of Russian tech, the agency has made initial and key steps towards the eventual decommissioning of the International Space Station.

SpaceX Dragon Reboost: Dates, Durations, Delta-V

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In a major milestone for space operations, NASA and SpaceX have successfully pushed the ISS a bit further away from Earth. The ISS orbit was elevated with a 15-minute burn of the Draco thrusters on the Dragon freighter.

This successful attempt follows a previous attempt that was a failure. At the time, operators had to manually abort a planned thruster burn because of issues with the fuel tank.

The first attempt to reboost was terminated prematurely because the burn, planned to last 19 minutes and 22 seconds, had to be stopped just 3 minutes and 45 seconds into it.

The mission was aborted after the operators noticed that a swap of the Draco thruster fuel tanks didn’t occur as planned, so the burn was stopped to conserve propellant on the spacecraft.  

The teams scheduled a follow-up reboost for the same week, whereas the reboost before the failed one had lasted the whole duration.

It was earlier last month that NASA noted in its official statement that SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft had been successful in finishing the test reboost of the ISS. During the maneuver, the freighter fired two of its Draco engines, which were located in the spacecraft’s trunk, for 5 minutes and 3 seconds.

A Sept. 17, 2025 reboost was terminated after 3 min 45 s of a planned 19 min 22 s burn when an automatic fuel-tank swap did not occur, and the team aborted to conserve propellant.

The reboost was done using SpaceX’s CRS-33 Trunk Draco thrusters or SpX-33. The “boost kit” propulsion module is in the hollow unpressurized trunk of Dragon. Besides two Draco thrusters, it involves a helium pressurant tank and six propellant tanks. 

“Dragon and its new ‘boost trunk’ performed a 15-minute burn yesterday, providing 1.62 m/s of delta-v to the ISS for station-keeping (a job typically performed by Roscosmos via the Zvezda Service Module or visiting Progress vehicles),” said SpaceX’s vice president of Falcon launch vehicles, Jon Edwards, on X.

This success demonstrates the ongoing collaboration between NASA and SpaceX, which has planned a series of periodic burns throughout the fall of 2025. It is also crucial for future missions, including the Soyuz crew swap planned for later this year. Meanwhile, in 2030, the ISS is scheduled for a controlled reentry, contingent upon SpaceX building a vehicle capable of executing the task beforehand.

From Progress to Dragon: How ISS Reboosts Are Changing

The International Space Station orbits about 250 miles or 400 kilometers above our planet, but the atmospheric drag makes it naturally fall back to Earth.

Over time, even the few stray molecules that are present at that high altitude make a big difference, so every few months, a cargo spacecraft is required to lift the orbiting complex higher. For this task, the Russian Progress spacecraft has always been the main choice, but with Russia planning to withdraw from the program earlier than the disassembly of the ISS, NASA has to find a replacement.

So, the agency turned to the US International Space Station resupply craft for the reboost.

The $91.6 bln market cap aerospace and defense technology company, Northrop Grumman (NOC -0.46%), is one of the companies that holds a contract with NASA to fly unmanned cargo missions to the ISS. Northrop’s shares have been pretty much up only this past decade, hitting an all-time high (ATH) above $640, up 36.37% YTD. It has an EPS (TTM) of 25.36 and a P/E (TTM) of 25.25, while the dividend yield paid is 1.44%.

The company was the chief contractor for the Apollo lunar module as well as the James Webb Space Telescope.

Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus vehicle is of key importance here. The uncrewed, multipurpose spacecraft is used for cargo resupply missions to the ISS. It consists of a Service Module and a Pressurized Cargo Module and has been upgraded over time to larger and more capable versions.

The other company is SpaceX, which has been working with NASA on human spaceflight and scientific missions under government contracts. The agency has actually been using its Dragon spacecraft for cargo and astronaut transport to the ISS and the Falcon 9 rocket for science payloads.

The Dragon spacecraft first reached the International Space Station over a decade ago, and in 2020, Crew Dragon became the first private, crewed spacecraft to reach the station.

So far, it has completed 53 missions in total and 48 to the ISS. The spacecraft is capable of carrying as many as seven passengers to and from Earth orbit, and beyond. It is equipped with 16 Draco thrusters, which can generate 90 pounds of force in the vacuum of space. These thrusters are used to orient the spacecraft during the mission, including orbit adjustment, attitude control, and apogee/perigee maneuvers.

It was late last year that Dragon successfully completed the ISS’s orbital reboost for the first time. 

At the time, the Dragon cargo spacecraft was docked to the ISS to fire its engines for 12.5 minutes. The data collected from this reboost and attitude control demonstration is to help it with “future capability, mainly the U.S deorbit vehicle,” said Jared Metter, director of flight reliability at SpaceX at the time, while Bill Spetch, operations and integration manager of the ISS program, said that they are working “very closely with SpaceX” in regards to Dragon launches.

In early September, Dragon sent the ISS to an orbit of 260.9 by 256.3 miles.

“The new boost kit in Dragon will help sustain the orbiting lab’s altitude through a series of longer burns planned periodically throughout the fall of 2025,” said NASA officials in the statement.

This Dragon first arrived at the ISS late in August, carrying 5,000 pounds or 2,270 kg of supplies and scientific investigations for the orbiting complex as well as the crew. This marked SpaceX’s 33rd commercial resupply services mission for NASA. 

It is expected to stay there until the end of this year or early next year, after which it will get back to Earth with discarded items and science from the ISS.

SpaceX has also launched almost 10,000 Starlink satellites into orbit, maintaining the world’s largest satellite internet constellation in low Earth orbit. It is also the world’s first satellite constellation that delivers broadband internet for streaming, video calls, online gaming, and more.

Most recently, NASA astronaut Don Pettit shared a video from his mission on the ISS, featuring dozens of SpaceX Starlink satellites. He posted the following on X:

“My best sighting of a Starlink satellite ‘train’ from orbit!”

What Replaces the ISS? Commercial Stations & Timeline

The space station is one of the most significant achievements for NASA, serving as a permanent laboratory and testbed platform in low Earth orbit (LEO). It is a springboard for developing a low Earth economy and NASA’s human exploration on the Moon and Mars.

As per NASA’s September 2025 update, the agency is seeking industry input on the next phase of commercial space stations, for which it issued a draft announcement for Phase 2 partnership proposals. Those selected will receive funding for critical design reviews and to demonstrate stations with four people in orbit for at least a month.

Then, NASA will move forward with the accepted design and ensure that the stations meet NASA’s safety requirements. This will allow the agency to buy missions and station services, much like how NASA is getting cargo and crew to the ISS today.

“NASA has led in low Earth orbit for 25 years and counting. Now, as we prepare for deorbiting the International Space Station in 2030, we’re calling on our commercial space partners to maintain this historic human presence. The American space industry is booming. Insight from these innovative companies will be invaluable as we work to chart the next phase of commercial space stations.”

– NASA Administrator Sean Duffy

Axiom Space is one of the companies involved in this space, having had four astronaut crews already visit the ISS, with the first one held back in 2022 and the most recent one in June this year. In the latest mission four astronauts were onboard a new SpaceX Dragon.

The company also holds contracts with NASA for a module (Habitat 1) which will attach to ISS before its retirement and will then detach to become an independent Axiom station, which will have an airlock, Habitat 2 module, and a research and manufacturing facility.

Starlab space station, a joint venture across Palantir, Mitsubishi, Airbus, Voyager Technologies, and MDA Space, meanwhile, is building a “next-generation, AI-enabled commercial space station” for which it has been awarded over $200 million.

Vast Space is another one, which is planning to launch the first commercial space station, Haven-1, in the first half of next year. 

Billionaire Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin is also developing its own commercial space station, Orbital Reef, as part of NASA’s Commercial LEO Development Program to eventually replace the ISS. Earlier this year, NASA reported progress on Orbital Reef, which has completed a human-in-the-loop testing milestone.

“Human-in-the-loop and iterative testing are essential to inform key decisions and mitigate risks to crew health and safety.”

– Angela Hart, program manager for NASA’s Commercial LEO  Program at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston

As NASA and its partners make strides in ISS operations, the agency is also laying the groundwork for a future in which space platforms will increasingly rely on autonomous and commercial capabilities.

One important aspect of this vision involves robotic maintenance. Recently, NASA signed an “unfunded Space Act Agreement” with Arkisys to maintain the robotic platform aboard the ISS to continue the Astrobee mission. 

The Astrobee mission was launched to the space station in 2018, and throughout this time, the free-flying robots have been working alongside astronauts on monitoring, exploration, and maintenance.

These robotic helpers, the agency believes, would one day be able to manage routine maintenance tasks all on their own without needing human assistance. They will also be able to support future spacecraft on the Moon and Mars.

Government Shutdown Context: What Stays Online at NASA

The new achievement by the NASA and SpaceX collaboration comes while the US government has put the federal space agency’s daily operations at a standstill.

The government shutdown occurred after Congress failed to provide funding before the end of the fiscal year, which ended on September 30. In the Senate, 60 votes are required to approve a temporary spending bill, but Republicans are unable to get them yet.

US President Donald Trump called the funding lapse a “Democrat forced closure” and encouraged Republicans to “use this opportunity to clear out dead wood, waste and fraud.”

Democrats are seeking support from the other side over expiring health care tax credits, among other issues, to support a funding bill to reopen the government. The proposal for the same has failed to get passed a few times, six to be exact, already.

As a result, the US government had its first shutdown since 2019, which was the most extended shutdown in US history at 35 days.

When it comes to the latest shutdown’s effect on NASA’s operations, the agency’s official contingency plan dictates that almost all routine activities are suspended during such time. Day-to-day operations only resume once Congress has approved a budget.

Already, more than 15,000 of its employees have been furloughed. Additionally, most of the scientific research and mission development have been halted.

A small group of “excepted” personnel is the only one who remains on duty, whose job is to safeguard astronauts aboard the ISS and protect crucial hardware.

While the domestic political space is experiencing turbulence and uncertainty, the successful ISS reboost marks a turning point. For decades, the station’s propulsion and maneuvering depended on Russian systems, but now NASA and SpaceX have proven that U.S. commercial capabilities can step up where international partnerships are winding down.

As NASA prepares for ISS decommissioning in 2030 and shifts focus toward commercial space stations and deep-space missions, this orbital adjustment signals a transition to a new, more flexible era of space operations.

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